


Jim Kirk's Limp Dick and Other Obstacles on the Path to Love

by silverlining99



Series: JTK [1]
Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Academy Era, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-21
Updated: 2009-06-21
Packaged: 2017-10-28 19:24:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/311369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverlining99/pseuds/silverlining99
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Christine Chapel isn't good at this whole love thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jim Kirk's Limp Dick and Other Obstacles on the Path to Love

**Author's Note:**

> For an st_xi_kink meme prompt: Bones/Chapel at the Academy. Steamy hot cadet/coworker/friend sex.

She meets him officially on the first day of Tactical Analysis their third year; she sits next to him on purpose. She knows who he is - where he comes from, where he lives, which shifts he works at SF General now that her license has come through. Of course, she knows pretty much the same things about every other medical cadet, too.

Christine Chapel is nothing if not observant.

She doesn't talk to him, not at first, not while she's punching her identification code into her console and confirming her intent to sit for the course. "Do you ever wonder," she finally asks absently, "what you'd do if every single one of them keeled over at once?"

"Be tempted to think the galaxy is abruptly a much safer place," he mutters. He casts her a sidelong glance, then a closer look. "Help me out, here. I know you from somewhere."

"I live six doors down from you," she tells him dryly. "And yesterday? That was _my_ hand you shoved into a chest cavity to staunch a bleed in that Bolian you were operating on."

He grimaces. "Well...shit." She grins broadly, and winks as he flushes. "Okay, let's pretend I'm _not_ the only one here needing an introduction. Leonard McCoy."

She tips her head at him. "Christine Chapel."

"Med student?"

"Nurse."

"Really. And you're taking Tactical? What are you, bored?"

"I want rank," she says bluntly. "I'm a nurse, Doctor, not a moron. I'll be head nurse on a starship within five years, I guarantee it. Hell if I'm spending the rest of my career stalled there, taking orders from every schmuck who fancies himself my superior."

He watches her with dark eyes. "What about schmucks who still are your superiors?"

"Prostate exams. Frequent prostate exams."

He laughs. "You really don't need to use the formalities outside the hospital, you know. Unless you prefer to be Nurse Chapel?"

Something in her chest tightens at the way he says that, how his mouth forms about the 'p' sound. It tempts her to say yes. "Nah," she says lightly instead. "Christine'll do just fine."

~*~*~*~*~*~

What wouldn’t be obvious from a glance at the typical staff credentials is that SF General is a civilian hospital operating under city administration rather than Starfleet Command.

There are times Christine appreciates that, most particularly when she fails to reign in a smart comment and knows she can't be officially reprimanded on her Academy record. They have, to her delight, not yet worked that particular kink out of the current, cobbled-together system of staffing straight from the Academy. Nor do they seem likely to: Starfleet has no interest in running an entire hospital that serves the general public, and the city has nowhere else to obtain sufficient specialized medical personnel for a population as xeno-diverse as San Francisco has become. Everyone generally shrugs the problems off as a matter of the endeavor as a whole being far greater than the sum of the daily shortcomings.

Other times, however, the outright inefficiency annoys the hell out of her. She has to maintain meticulous records of her floor hours, cross-referenced by procedures assisted, patient species, and official department - and then she has to bitch at, nag, and harass about eighteen different people in the records department at the end of each quarter just to get the hospital to confirm to the Academy that she's not forging her experience credits.

In December, she storms into the scrub room, blinks back angry tears as she shoves her arms into a sterile smock. McCoy is there already, just about to start scrubbing in. He glances at her. "What's got your feathers ruffled, Chapel?"

"My career just went to hell in a hand basket, how's _your_ day going?"

He looks thoroughly unimpressed by her outburst. "You gonna stand there and carry on all day, or you feel like telling me what happened?"

She sighs. "As of this morning, the registrar is still missing my EC confirmation. The _idiot_ they have riding the main desk upstairs tells me it's sitting on the same desk it's _been_ sitting on for three weeks since I submitted it, and the asshole attending who has to sign off on it is off-world as of yesterday - for the next _month_. And no, she's afraid it can't be transferred to anyone else, she doesn't have the fucking authority or _brains_ to do that. Registration for next quarter closes today and I _can't_ register because I need those credits to qualify, and if I'm not enrolled and in attendance when classes start I'm not fucking considered a prospective grad and won't be put on the rolls for assignment in the fleet until this gets sorted out. And when I finally do go on it’ll be at the bottom of the fucking list instead of where I _belong_ based on the last two and a half years of making damn sure I'm _better_ than the rest of my class. So yeah, you know, think of me sometime when you're seeing amazing things out there on a starship - I'll be treating _crotch_ fungus on a dilithium mining vessel somewhere. Just _exactly_ what I always wanted to do with my life. God, I can't wait."

McCoy stares at her, his mouth hanging open. "Crotch fungus?" he finally says.

"Don't even," she snaps. "My father was a miner and my mother was a loudmouth harpy. It's number one on the list of things that make me positively yearn for selective amnesia."

She can see him fighting a smile, and she's glad he manages to contain it. She doesn't particularly want to have to punch him in the mouth. "Come on," she mutters. "Let's just get this damn surgery done so I can go drink myself sick."

"Hold on." He glances through the window and punches the intercom button. "Doctor Carson, I've got a minor delay. Gimme ten, would you?"

"Sure, we're not going anywhere."

"Thanks." McCoy strips off his gown. "Got a copy of your creds on you? Hand it over." Frowning, she pulls her personal data pad from her shirt pocket and calls up the correct file before handing it to him. He skims it quickly. "This all accurate?"

"If you're implying I would -"

"Oh, stop your bellyaching and come with me," he snaps, exasperated. She snaps her mouth closed and follows him out of the scrub room to the nearest turbolift - which he takes straight to Chief of Medicine's office. The secretary smiles brightly when they walk in. "Morning, Lucinda," he greets her warmly. "He busy?"

"Theoretically, but just between you and me he's on hour three of hologolf. Still above par, too."

"Of course he is, the man's swing is the most atrocious thing I've ever beheld. Mind if I -"

"Go ahead. Do me a favor and remind him he's here to do actual work occasionally? He thinks I made that part of the job description up just to screw with him."

McCoy chuckles and heads for the main office. When Christine hangs back, he returns to snag her by the arm and haul her along. Five minutes later, he's called in some mysterious favor and she's transmitting her course registration with fully approved credits attached. "Thank you," she says quietly in the turbolift back down to the OR.

He shrugs. "Don't mention it."

She chews her lip, frustrated. They chat easily enough in class together and she likes working with him, enjoys every shift they cover together. But they're not - they're not this to each other. They don't go out of their way. She feels like some kind of line has been crossed that he won't acknowledge, and she needs him to. "I kind of have to. You had pull with the fucking _Chief_ , and you traded it in for...me."

"Worth it," he says coolly. He won't look at her. "Look, Chapel, you're the best damn nurse I've ever worked with. You'd be wasted on idiots who can't even keep their junk clean. "

"But -" She pauses. She knows him at least well enough to know he's uncomfortable with displays of gratitude, too deeply ingrained with his doctor's sense of doing things not for honor or glory, but because they need and deserve to be done. She can live with that, with boiling it down to him being him, and doing a professional courtesy. "I owe you one," she says instead.

"Tell you what. Buy me a drink sometime, we'll call it even," he suggests. She frowns briefly, right back on shaky footing. "Could we maybe practice some actual medicine now, or is there more bureaucracy you'd like to unravel first?"

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

He doesn't mention it again, but she doesn't forget. In January she runs into him and Jim Kirk on the Embarcadero, and they convince her to join them for drinks. Jim bats his lashes at her, tells her it's his birthday and she can't refuse. McCoy just looks aggravated, but he insists she's welcome and she can't put her finger on his mood. He's on edge about something and clearly trying to shrug it off. Part of her wants to refuse, and she only winds up saying yes because she wants the debt off her shoulders.

Two hours later Jim has ditched their table for a permanent posting at the bar, the better to chat with a wider variety of women as he gets progressively drunker, and she's left staring across at McCoy as he sprawls comfortably in his chair and twirls his glass in it's own pool of condensation. He keeps a fairly constant eye on Jim, watchful like a hawk. "He's not what I pictured," she mentions.

"Who and what for?"

"Jim freaking Kirk, as one of your friends. You're remarkably, um. _Patient_ with him."

McCoy snorts. "Like hell I am. He just doesn't take me personally. It works out well for us both."

"How'd you meet?"

"Shuttle that brought us in. We were both hung over and beat to shit - figuratively, in my case, but still. The planets aligned or something, fuck if I know. Here we are. I can't get rid of him."

"And don't want to?" she suggests, the answer already there in his wry smile.

"Nope. He's a good kid underneath all the bullshit."

"I'm sure he is. You've never struck me as one to suffer fools gladly."

He lifted his glass in acknowledgment of that. "I believe we are of like mind on that point. So what about you? Five months and I don't have the slightest clue who you're friends with."

"Nobody, really," she admits. "Not here. It's - I've kept to myself."

"Lonely life."

"Busy life." She finishes her beer and shrugs. "I figure it can wait until I'm assigned. I've always thought of my time here as a prolonged pit stop on the road to excitement and adventure, anyway."

"Hmph." He scowls at her and she frowns back. "You're wrong, anyway. We're friends."

"Whatever. You're practically my fucking boss, McCoy."

"You always curse at your professional superiors, _Chapel_? I should start a pool on how long it will take you to get court-martialed. Smart money's on under six months, I think."

"Fine, consider us friends. Now fuck off."

He smirks at her, satisfied. "Atta girl."

"I hate you." She gets up, ready to get another round, then sits back down hard. "Uh. We might have a problem."

He glances at the bar immediately, frowns when he doesn't see Jim there anymore. "Where the hell'd Jim go?"

"I, uh. He's in that booth over there. Is he - is he doing what I think he's doing?"

McCoy looks, then shoots to his feet. "For Christ's _sake_. Excuse me. Sorry."

She follows; she's not missing this for the world. McCoy makes a beeline for Jim and grabs him hard by the ear as he leans over. "Get your dick _out_ of her mouth and _back_ in your pants," he hisses. "Good God, Jim, you could get arrested and tossed out of the Academy. Do you want that?"

"Huh?" Jim stares at him blearily. "Hey, Bones!" He shifts his gaze to Christine and his smile goes predatory. "Chris-tiiiiiine. Listen, Christine, I've wanted to tell you something all night. I wanted to say...oh, god. Yeah, baby. Gonna come."

McCoy goes beet-red with fury as her eyes widen. Jim slumps lower in his seat and his eyes roll back, lids fluttering. "Fuck," he whispers, his smile going lazy and sated and so very, very drunk. "Christine. Will you go out with me, do you think?"

She blinks. McCoy releases Jim's ear and turns away; out of the corner of her eye Christine sees his fists clenching reflexively. "I'll think about it," she lies, then drops to a crouch. "Hey, so, excuse me?" she says to the girl kneeling under the table. "Good job. Fun's over now, come on out. Do me a favor and...put him away first?"

The girl just rolls her eyes and crawls out from under the table, saunters off. Christine sighs and sits down hard next to Jim. She's fairly sure McCoy might do him actual harm if he gets to close just yet. "Jim. _Jim_. I need you to zip up and come with us - Jim?"

He lets out a snore. "Oh my God," she mutters. She grabs his limp, wet penis and stuffs it back into his pants, struggles to get the zipper back up. McCoy makes an aggravated noise somewhere beside her. "Oh, get over it," she snaps. She wipes her hand on her slacks. "We should get him back to campus."

"Get up," McCoy orders. She moves out of the way and he grabs Jim by the front of the shirt to tug him out of the booth, wakes him in the process. "That's right, Romeo, one foot in front of the other. March, mister."

Christine scurries to grab all their coats from their table and catches up just outside. "Hand him over," she says, teeth chattering. She trades Jim's slumped weight for McCoy's coat, struggles to hold him up as McCoy puts it on. "You smell good," Jim mumbles. He rears his head back and breathes sourly in Christine's face, then kisses her wetly, obscenely.

"Jim!" McCoy roars, yanking him back - by the hair this time. Christine just wipes her chin and cheek with the back of one hand and slips on her own coat. "Jesus, Christine, I'm sorry. He's not - he's not usually like this, no matter what you've heard. I swear."

"Relax, I get it." She guides one of Jim's arms into a sleeve and waits for McCoy to shift his weight before doing the next.

"Seriously, he -."

"I said don't worry about it." Finished buttoning Jim up, she shoves her chilled hands into her pockets and frowns. "Come on, let's get him back."

They both help Jim stumble along on the way to campus, until they finally deposit him in a lump on his bed. Shed of him, Christine feels lighter as they walk silently to the medical dorm. "Look, if you're mad at him for my sake," she finally says, "let it go."

"Why should I?" McCoy's voice is shaky, like he's letting himself get truly angry now that Jim is safely out of his presence. "You're nice as can be to him and he just - god, he's an asshole. Such a goddamn asshole."

"That wasn't him."

"That _was_ him, just drunk as a skunk."

"It's his birthday," she says. "Can't be that happy a day for him. Cut him some slack, just this once."

McCoy stops dead on the path. "You know?"

She turns mid-step to watch him as she keeps walking backwards. Everyone knows who Jim Kirk's father was, and besides that, she paid attention to her Starfleet history. What she hadn't known, and is pretty sure most people don't put together, was the coinciding dates. "I'm good with dates," she says simply. "What was he? A year old? Two? That's got to be rough."

McCoy gazes at her, starts walking again. "No, not a year. More like a minute. He got shit-faced and told me _last_ year, this time - he was born during the attack."

Christine's lips purse into an 'o' of...of something she can't quite define. "Wow. You'd think that'd be more well-known."

"I went back and looked at some of the news archives after he told me. I think someone may have tried to keep it quiet - maybe for his sake, or his mom's."

"Probably best." She pauses to let him catch up. "You said he's a good guy. I believed you. Stop worrying."

"It's generous of you."

"Overlooking an extraordinary amount of people's personal crap is in the nurse's handbook, didn't you know?"

She smiles over at him, feels a relief she can't explain to herself when he quirks an agreeable grin back. They walk in companionable silence until they reach their dorm, and she lets him take care of the door. He steps back politely once it opens and follows her in.

In the heat of the entryway, she slips out of her coat and hugs it to her chest as she rubs her hands together. "Early," she remarks.

"Yeah, sorry. I'd kind of hoped to make an evening of it when we brought you along." They reach his door, but he doesn't stop; she smiles to herself at his automatic manners. "This is you, right?" he says as they arrive at her room.

"And once upon a time you didn't even recognize me," she teases. He laughs. "Look at it this way: Jim's off your hands tonight. We could have a nice, laid-back drink. I've got whiskey."

"Whiskey," he echoes.

"Tequila, too, but I save that for special occasions. Post-exam self-medication, usually."

"I don't know..."

She shuffles one foot against the floor and hesitates. The clench in her belly, the desire not to say good night just yet - it's unfamiliar to her, when it comes to him, and she's not sure she likes what it could mean. But he's been a kind, steady presence in her life for months, giving nothing special - except once - and expecting nothing in return, and she realizes with a start that here and now, it's built to something. She looks at his wind-reddened cheeks and soft, intelligent eyes, and she decides. "I'm trying to ask you in, Leonard," she says boldly. His name feels strange on her tongue; she can’t even remember the last time she said it. "You're kind of screwing it up."

"Listen, Christine -"

"Shut up," she says. She steps forward and gathers fistfuls of his jacket and pushes up onto her toes to meet his lips with hers. Just a swift, easy kiss, then she drops back down and releases him. "Want to come in?" she tries again.

"Yes," he breathes in a low voice that makes her skin tingle. She nods, almost to herself, and swipes her ID badge across the scanner. The doors slide open, a hiss of air, and just as she lifts a foot to step inside he tugs her back, mouth crashing down on hers. "Damn it, woman," he mutters, crowding her into her room. "Have you got any idea how long I've wanted you?" He lifts her off her feet and she winds her arms around his neck and _climbs_ him, shimmying up to wrap her legs around his waist, the bulk of his jacket.

A throat clears behind her; she remembers - too late - that her roommate isn't working tonight. "Get out," she gasps over her shoulder.

McCoy chuckles against her throat. "We can -"

"No. Elsa, get out. I'll make it up to you later, just -" His hand slides under her jacket, her shirt, and she shivers. " _Go_."

Elsa doesn't say a word as she gathers her studying materials and scrambles out. "You know, I have my own room," McCoy insists on saying.

Christine shakes her head. She tips her body back and claws at his jacket. "She's always going on about how I need to get laid," she explains breathlessly. "She can damn well clear out and let it happen. Left side."

Shaking with laughter, he drops her on the correct bed and stands over her as he strips out of his coat and lets it fall to the floor. "What's she care about your sex life?"

She sits up and crosses her arms over her belly, skims her shirt over her head. "She's a free spirit and thinks I'm an uptight bitch in bad need of a good hard fuck. Her words."

His mouth twists in a fierce grin. His eyes glint as she unhooks her bra and lets her breasts fall free. He continues to undress. "Yours?"

"Oh, hers are good enough." Christine flops back and unbuttons her slacks, lifting her hips to shove them down with her panties. "I am definitely an uptight bitch in bad need of a good hard fuck." Naked, she smiles up at him. "Care to treat my condition, Doctor?"

He has just toed out of his shoes and unbuckled his belt, and he pauses to palm his cock roughly. A satisfyingly aggravated sound rumbles out of his throat. "Shit. Christine. You can't say stuff like that or this is gonna be over real fast."

She crawls backwards on the bed until her head is on her pillow. Her heart is pounding. This is not what she does; she's never had this strange, slow buildup to sex, never fucked anyone she'll have to deal with later on any other terms. Her first time was a tipsy affair, getting picked up in a bar the night she graduated high school, and she enjoyed it. She peppered her university years with similar, quick encounters, never any strings, nothing to tie her down and distract her.

This is...not that. He's her classmate, her colleague, her - her friend. There is no frisson of fear lurking in the back of her mind that she doesn't know him and that this could turn ugly in an instant; there's only trust and desire and, deep down, a gnawing worry that it might be the biggest mistake she'll ever make.

Christine Chapel: woman of science. She's not even sure she believes in luck.

She's gambling here, though, with something that matters. She can only hope it doesn't end badly. She rubs her head back against the pillow, mussing her hair, and slips one hand between her legs. She strokes herself slowly, just the way she needs to build her sensitivity, and lets her breath quicken.

McCoy closes his eyes and tears at his trousers. "Evil, vicious woman," he gripes, hopping to free first one leg, then the other. "Prostate exams and crotch rot - I shoulda run away screaming by now."

She parts her legs so he can crawl between them. He swats her hand away and dips down to blow a cool stream of air across her heated flesh before flicking his tongue at it, then latches his warm, wet mouth over her and sucks hard. Christine twists her fingers in his hair and clutches him close, lifts her hips helplessly. McCoy presses her legs wide and slides his hands under her ass and lifts her, dragging her a little down the bed as he draws her up over his bent legs and feasts, head bent as if in prayer.

His shoulders press against the backs of her thighs; she digs her heels into his back. He rubs the flat of his tongue against her and then circles the tip, alternating pressure with feather-light, tickling touches. His teeth scrape lightly and make her jerk and fist her bedsheets. "More," she chokes out. She's spinning out fast, faster than she generally prefers. "Like - no, no, just...oh. Yes. Oh god. Oh godohgod - yes, yes, like that, do that again - oh!"

She throws her head back and sobs through the release, legs gone taut, her cunt spasming and clutching greedily at nothing. He works his tongue into her for a moment of sweet, not-enough relief, lapping at her fresh flood of moisture, then turns his head to the side and mouths her sweat-slick thigh. She'll feel it tomorrow, she knows, the mark he's leaving there. She wants to.

He shifts slowly, gradually. His mouth stays on her skin as long as possible as he carefully unwinds her legs and lowers her onto his lap. He skims his palms up her sides and under her shoulders to pull her up, into his arms. His forehead to hers, his lips just almost-there, he secures her with one arm around her back and uses his other hand to hold his cock, rub the tip against her twitching clit. "Christine," he says quietly, firmly. She moans. Just his voice, saying her name. He slips to her entrance, pushes just the head inside. She shudders at the stretch, the forgotten feel of being breached like this, thick and hot. McCoy groans, low and strained. He gathers her hair and pulls her head back, kisses the underside of her chin. "Christine, you beautiful little thing." His mouth drags across her throat. "Gonna fuck you, honey, just like you need. I'll take care of you."

She whimpers, stares at the ceiling through glazed eyes. He slams in, surging up on his knees to drive his cock all the way into her waiting body. She shouts, deep, from the belly. He lets go of her hair and caresses her back, his palms gliding easily over her damp skin, and he grants her a few slow thrusts. "You feel so damn good," he growls in her ear. "Could almost believe you've never taken a cock before, you're so tight. Been too long, sweetheart, hasn't it? Tell me."

She digs her nails into his back. "Before - before I enlisted," she mumbles. She feels embarrassed by it, like something's wrong with her, a healthy woman in her twenties not getting it good and often. She's worried he'll think it's that nobody has wanted her, that he'll wonder why _he's_ here if she's no good.

But instead it gets her what she wants, swift, hard strokes of his cock. "Good," he grunts in between each thrust. "Means I don't...need...to wonder...who here's...had his filthy...worthless ...hands...on you.... Oh God, honey, yeah, let it go." Her moans go high-pitched and she comes again, spasming hard around his cock. "Just like that, baby, that's a good girl."

He cradles the base of her skull in one large hand and looks at her. She blinks at with with heavy lids, dazed, shaking. "Leonard," she whispers. He nips at her lower lip; their breath mixes, hot and muggy between them, shades of the long-lost Louisiana summers of her childhood. "I don't, I need, I..."

He kisses her, sucks hard on her tongue. His hands come around to cup her breasts, thumbs toying at her nipples. She has to clutch at his shoulders for support and put effort into riding into the steady roll of his hips. "What is it?" he murmurs. "What do you need?"

Tears slip from her eyes as tension begins to coil again, aftershocks suddenly reversing course. "Too much, I can't - oh god. Oh god, _Leonard_!" she wails. Her breath comes in hiccuping gasps. She can't even support the weight of her own head, so she drops it forward onto his shoulder. "Do it," she pants. "Fuck me, I can't - you - I - _please_."

He makes a harsh sound and gathers her close, strong arms folding around her. He lights into her rapid-fire, hitching her weight as if it were nothing each time he wants to adjust the angle of his cock pumping into her. She can tell he's utterly lost to it, to the staccato snap of his hips, to the clasp of her around him. He groans loudly when he comes, squeezes her in a vice-grip while his cock shoots deep inside her body. He strokes the back of her head, her damp clumps of hair. "Christine, Christine," he says softly. He says nothing else; she thinks he just wanted to hear her name.

He keeps her held close when he tips her back down onto the bed, and he settles her before easing his softening cock out. She moans softly at the loss, too far gone to say anything coherent. "Shh," he murmurs, his lips brushing her forehead. The warmth of him leaves her and she's dimly aware of movement, of running water. He comes back and sits next to her on the bed and leans down to catch her lips in a slow, sweet kiss. He parts her legs with one hand, strokes her swollen, sensitive flesh with a warm cloth. She reaches up weakly, mindlessly, to draw him down to her.

She falls asleep to his lips traveling across her neck, her collarbone, her breasts, soft kisses designed to do nothing but soothe.

She wakes up alone.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

She wastes no time in screwing everything up. It is, she’s always tended to think in bleaker moments, something of a specialty.

The quarter starts that morning - she has a combat triage elective that McCoy isn't in, and then Comparative Xenobiology, which she knows he _is_. She arrives at the last possible minute on purpose and slips into a seat in the back, spends most of class staring at the back of his head, five rows down, remembering his hands on her, his mouth.

Later she will thank God for a detailed syllabus, because she won't be able to recall a single damn thing the professor says the entire hour.

She goes to work late - on purpose, again. It backfires in its own way, as McCoy is just coming out of the locker rooms when she's trying to scurry in, and she walks right into him. He steadies her with strong hands on her biceps. "Hey, hey, slow down." She looks up at him and he smiles, warm and open. "I didn't see you in class."

She flicks her gaze away. "I was there. I have to - I have to change. Excuse me, Doctor."

He lets her go, hands going up in surrender.

She curses herself under her breath while she changes into her duty uniform, and berates herself mentally even as she arranges for another nurse to cover her floor responsibilities so that she can hide herself away and work on charts. Nobody disturbs her and she doesn't emerge, even for dinner. At the end of the shift she waits until the computer shows that McCoy has signed off duty, and gives it another twenty minutes before she ventures down to gather her belongings from her locker.

He's waiting for her outside the front doors. She just barely stops herself from turning on her heel and walking back inside, though her step does falter slightly before she trudges up to him. He looks tired, bleary. His hair flutters in the cold breeze sweeping in from the bay. "Hi," she makes herself say. She's successful in hitting a casual tone, at least to her own ears. "Rough shift?"

"Not particularly. Just frustratingly long." He gazes down at her gravely. "I wanted to apologize to you, for leaving like I -"

She forces her face into pleasant blankness, despite the heat that rises under her skin even in the winter air. "What?" she interrupts. "Don't be silly, there's nothing to apologize for. It's not like I asked you to stay." The startled hurt that crosses his features at that makes her sick. She pats her jacket pockets. "Damn, I - I left my badge in my locker, gotta get it. See you later!"

"Christine!" he shouts after her, but she's already running back into the hospital. She walks straight through and out the back service door, and she walks all the way back to campus.

Elsa is thankfully not there when she gets to her room. Her computer terminal is flashing that she has audio waiting; she cringes but turns it on. "Christine, it’s Jim," the first one starts, left that morning while she was in class. His voice is gravelly, just a faint undertone of a whine. "So listen. My recollections are, ah... _fuzzy_ , at best, but it's been brought to my attention that last night I may have - okay, no, I definitely behaved towards you in a manner unbefitting a woman of your excellent and _superior_ calibre." She smiles at the mournful, emphasized sincerity of his tone. "Hope you can forgive me. I am really sorry."

The second one is only ten minutes old. "Christine," he says roughly. She can hear the faint sound of a ferry horn in the background. "I get it, all right? Relax. We're - damn it. We're on the same page here. It's for the best. I'll see you around, I suppose."

Life goes on. She tells herself - repeatedly, insistently - that she's pleased with how it's all turned out. She's on solid footing again, able to smile politely at him in class, in the hallway outside their rooms; she's able to work with him without problems or tension.

So they don’t talk about anything that matters, ever. She doesn’t need that. Never did.

And if she goes to sleep some nights wishing she weren't alone, if she wakes up occasionally slick and aching with him at the front of her thoughts - well. That's just her body protesting the quick, teasing taste of satisfaction she gave it before returning to deprivation and denial; it's just her mind latching onto the most recent memory available.

She's _happy_ with how things are. She's pleased as fucking punch.

Elsa calls her an idiot.

In the increasingly rare moments when Christine is honest with herself, she's forced to agree.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

After a few weeks, things really do seem okay. On a clear day in February, a break after a week of overcast skies, she takes her notes out to the water to study in the sun. She sees McCoy and Jim sitting out on a bench in their simulation grays, and when Jim waves her over she only hesitates for a moment. "Gentlemen," she greets them. She sits next to Jim. "Sim day, huh?"

"Kobayashi Maru day," Jim corrects cheerfully. He tosses an apple from one hand to the other and back again. "Take a good look, Christine: this right here’s the guy who's gonna be the first to win it."

She laughs. McCoy groans. "Wow. Will you give me an autograph after? I'd love to be able to prove I knew you when."

"Better than that - come out with us tonight. It's gonna be a night to celebrate." She raises a skeptical eyebrow at him and he grins sheepishly. "I'll behave myself. Tell you what, I'll only have what you do. Drink for drink."

She looks at McCoy; he looks back at her silently. She can't tell if she's imagining the challenge she sees reflected in his eyes. "Okay," she agrees, focusing on Jim again. "But I'm holding you to that promise."

"My intoxication is in your capable hands, cross my heart. Bones! Time to go."

"You don't need to do this," McCoy tells her quietly after Jim gets up and begins walking away. He stares out over the water, brow furrowed.

"I want to," she replies, and realizes it's the truth. He gives her a sidelong glance and she smiles, tries to tell him with it that she’s trying, that she wants to try.

"It’s his third time taking the damn thing. He’s gonna fail, and it’s gonna be ugly and depressing. Just because I have to sit ringside for the whole damn circus doesn’t mean anyone else should."

"Oh, stop. We'll cheer him up and celebrate it being a beautiful day, instead." She tilts her head up to the sun and closes her eyes. "Go on, get on with you. And relax. I have a feeling - good things are going to happen today."

Three hours later, she watches with a knot in her stomach as Jim defends his integrity in front of their entire class.

An hour after that, she steps foot on the Enterprise for the very first time.

She's pretty sure she needs to evaluate why her feelings are, so frequently, so damn wrong.

~*~*~*~*~*~

It can’t be real.

Seriously. She has to wonder if Starfleet is running the most ridiculous simulation they could possibly dream up. They're in warp to an unknown crisis, they're missing about a quarter of their essential supplies, she's dodging computer techs trying to figure out why two diagnostic consoles aren't receiving power of any kind, some kid with an accent is yammering about lightning storms in space, McCoy is stomping around muttering angrily to himself, and Jim Kirk is unconscious on one of the exam tables.

By the time McCoy hollers at her for cortisone and she has to scramble to figure out if they even _have_ any, she really, really wants the drink she'd planned to end her day with.

A series of small mercies follows. She finds the cortisone. Jim runs off, McCoy in close pursuit. The consoles hum to life and the techs clear the hell out of her way. She's finally able to finish inventorying what they have, and what they still need.

Dr. Puri looks over the list she hands him and nods approvingly at the prioritization she's given the missing items. "Good work, Nurse Chapel. Come with me and we'll start getting all this together."

He takes Christine one deck down to the central supply section, a maze of interconnected storage bays crammed with shelves full of cargo bins. He tasks her with locating the small equipment they need while he goes a few rooms down to begin gathering medications.

She pauses in her work when the ship drops out of warp and does something that stresses the internal inertial dampeners and makes her lose her balance briefly, then continues loading boxes of hyposprays and scanners onto her transport cart.

And then everything just goes straight to hell.

The shock wave from the explosion at the far end of the long suite of rooms lifts her off her feet and throws her against the wall at the end of the shelving unit she's at. During the fraction of a second she's able to lie still, stunned, she realizes almost simultaneously that she is still alive, and that the hull has been breached.

She thinks, so much for being alive.

Then her training and instincts kick in and she exhales hard as she twists her body, stretching her arms and twisting them desperately around one leg of the massive shelf even as her body begins to be pulled violently toward the gaping void of space three bays down. It's a futile, frantic effort before she’s yanked free and hurtled through the air feet first, unable to breathe or scream or do anything at all, knowing that she’s going to die. It buys her nothing but one additional moment.

It makes all the difference in the world.

Emergency force fields snap into place, at last, in time. She drops hard to the floor; the impact jars up one elbow and her face smacks down right against one eye socket. Rolling onto her back, she tries to pull air into her empty lungs, but the atmospheric controls aren’t compensating as quickly as her body would like. She closes her eyes.

She comes to slung over someone's shoulders, being jostled by a clumsy, stumbling walk. She hears shouts, screams, hears the computer's eerie, emotionless voice announcing that the emergency force field will deactivate in one minute, that all personnel should evacuate behind the forward bulkheads.

Christine closes her eyes and lets herself be fucking rescued, for once in her damn life.

Everything suddenly comes to a halt; whoever it is carrying her stops short and does an about-face. Her head throbs and she groans. "Clear!" he shouts. "Corridor 12 sealing!"

Christine wriggles. He ignores her. She hears the grinding roll of an emergency bulkhead lowering into place. "Pu'me down," she mumbles, squirming again.

He's not all that gentle about hefting her off his shoulder and setting her on her feet. She leans weakly against the wall; he does the same opposite her. "What happened?"

"Torpedo breached the hull on decks six through eight, structural damage to five and nine." He leans over, braces his hands on bent knees, breathes hard. The air rattles its way in and out of his lungs. "Comm relay for this entire deck has just failed...last order that came through was to seal the forward sections fast. Auxiliary power is too strained to maintain the emergency field. Damage meant...had to do it manually. We’ve been sweeping for everyone we could find still alive - found you just before I had to close the last one."

"Thanks, then." She peers at him, notes the blossom of dark color on his red tunic. "Come on. We gotta get you up to medical."

He shakes his head. "Can’t just yet, but I’ll go when the secondary bulkheads come up. They could use you back there - ‘s’where they’ve been taking the wounded."

Abruptly, his knees give out and he slides slowly to the floor. "Hey!" Christine snaps. She goes to her knees next to him and moves her hand carefully over the spreading stain, seeking out the damage. She finds it under his left arm and feels sick; a twisted chunk of metal is lodged in his skin. She has no way to tell how deep the penetration goes. “No way, you can’t give up on me now,” she insists. “It’s my turn to get you out of here, but I need your help.”

He doesn’t answer. She looks at his face and his eyes are wide and blank.

She gives in and lets herself throw up.

She’s never in her life owed a damn thing to a patient in her care, other than doing the best job she can. Now the first one has just died on the floor in front of her. She’s known for a long time, on an intellectual level, on an academic level, that serving on a starship with a limited crew, a crew responsible for her safety as much as she was responsible for theirs, would be different than tending to strangers in a hospital.

But nobody ever told her it would be different like _this_.

She wants to go home.

~*~*~*~*~*~

It’s a minor freak out, in the grand scheme of things. She empties her stomach and dry-heaves for a few minutes, then struggles to her feet and trudges aft. One section back she begins to run across casualties, some just shell-shocked, some bleeding sluggishly, some dead. She gives in to the temptation to stop at each person at first, until she finds herself telling several to wait until the bulkheads come up and report for non-emergency treatment.

Then she rounds a corner and the real fun begins. She counts at least fifteen bodies stretched out along the sides of the corridor, a handful of other crew scattered about, tending to them in an ineffective, helpless way.

Christine sways slowly on her feet, has to reach for the wall to catch her balance. “You,” she calls to a science officer sitting on the floor. “You injured?”

He looks up at her. “Just my arm. Sliced it open on something.”

“Get up here, let me look.” He gets to his feet and she peers at his wound. “Damn it, I don’t have any - sorry about this,” she says, and yanks at his sleeve, at the seam, until it tears and she can peel it down his arm. She repeats it with his undershirt and then winds the gauzy tunic sleeve around the gash, ties it off. “You’re to report to a medical bay the second you’re able to and get that dealt with. Anything else? You’re sure? Then you’re my new assistant. How much medical training do you have?”

“First aid.” He grimaces apologetically at her. “I’m a botanist.”

“I envy you. Just...take the far side and go one by one, quickly. If someone’s dead, move on. If they’re alert, mobile, and can identify their own injuries, tell them to sit tight and I’ll get to them as soon as I can. If anyone’s bleeding profusely, unconscious, or in bad shape somehow, yell for me.” She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. “Go.”

The next twenty minutes are twenty of the longest in her life. Somehow she manages to make it through everyone, falling back on her training as best she can without equipment or supplies. She destroys a number of shirts for makeshift bandages and corrals a handful of techs to keep an eye on some of the more serious injuries. She loses two more men and a woman who probably never stood a chance anyway, and finally occupies herself with frantic attempts to keep one last operations tech alive.

When the bulkhead at the end of the corridor starts to rise, she nearly sobs in relief. “I’m going for help,” she tells the kid slowly fading away in front of her. “You keep your hand _right_ _there_. If you die while I’m gone, I’ll be really pissed.” She drags herself to her feet, hands scrabbling at the wall. “You, you, you, you, and you. Get someone to help you and start moving them up to the main medical bay. Carefully, damn it!”

The corridors outside the newly unsealed sections are bustling with activity, crew members moving at top speed all over the place. She ignores it all and finds the nearest turbolift, takes it to deck five.

She walks into a medical bay that’s half-destroyed and teeming with Vulcans and injured crew. Startled, she trips to a halt and stares.

McCoy hurries through, his hands full of hyposprays and vials. When he sees her, he stops dead in his tracks.

“You’re bleeding,” he says blankly, after a long moment. He shoves his bundle of supplies into the hands of a passing nurse.

She glances down at her once-pristine white uniform, now stained gruesomely with patches of red. She shakes her head and gazes around at the swarm of people, the flurry of activity, the scorched blast zone that used to be the research lab. “It’s not mine,” she tells him off-handedly. “What’s going on?”

“A catastrophe, is what’s going on,” he bites out. “We got ambushed. Our other seven ships have been destroyed, Captain Pike’s been taken hostage by Romulans and Vulcan...the entire planet’s gone. Where the _hell_ have you been?”

She shakes her head again, trying to process the information. She can’t, it’s too much; she switches gears. This is what she signed up for, she thinks. She’s here to take care of people. “Deck six is re-opened,” she reports. “I cleared as much of the minor stuff as I could. I authorized immediate transport for five critical I thought could be moved - they’re on their way. But I’ve still got a kid down there trying his damnedest to bleed out on me, I couldn’t - I had to leave him. I told him if he dies I’ll beat the shit out of him, but I don’t know if he under - let me go!”

McCoy has wrapped an arm around her shoulders and is trying to steer her to an examination table. “M’Benga!” he barks. “Get down to deck six and assess the situation. Take Tracy with you, have her report back with anything you need.”

Christine struggles, his words making no difference to her. “Damn it, McCoy, I have to go! Let me do my damn job!”

“Nurse Chapel,” he says firmly. “You are hereby relieved from duty until I personally clear you. Until then, you _have_ no job. Now sit your ass down before I sedate you!”

She sits. She stares straight ahead as he runs a scanner over her swollen eye. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, woman,” he snaps, “you’ve fractured your zygomatic and maxillary bones. What the hell did you do to yourself?”

“I fell.”

“On your eye? You just happened to fall flat on your eye?”

“And my elbow,” she adds absently. She sees Jim across the bay. He looks like he’s been through a wringer, but she’d lay good money on having him beat.

“Elbow, got it. I’ll check that next.”

“S’fine.”

“Yeah? Straighten your arm for me,” he challenges. She purses her lips and doesn’t move. “That’s what I thought. Lie back, I need a good image of this.”

She reclines on the table and holds still to let him get a steady scan of her skull. “I thought you were dead,” he says quietly, never taking his focus off his work. “When I got here and M’Benga told me you’d gone with Puri...”

She just shrugs. She’s done caring, she decides; he won’t let her care, just when she finally thinks she figured out how to do it right. “I’m alive. Everything all right?”

He sighs. “I think so. I don’t see any signs of damage to the actual eye, no nerve impairment...all I can do right now is treat you for the pain, and we’ll keep tabs on it as the swelling goes down. Hopefully I’ll be able to lay my hands on better equipment soon. Let me know if you notice any problems with your vision. Elbow?”

She raises her arm, still bent, lets him confirm that it’s bruised, not fractured. “What happened down there?” he asks when he finally sets down the last of his hyposprays. He pinches her chin between thumb and forefinger and tilts her face up to make her look at him.

She blinks lopsidedly at him, tries not to think about what he said, about the fleet, about Vulcan, about the kid dying down below, about the people who already died under her hands. “The hull blew wide open,” she said dully. “I think it was by the pharmaceutical shelves. Doctor Puri was doing that - he must have been right there. He left me with the equipment.... I tried to hold on, I just - I _couldn’t_. But the fields came up before I was.... I fell down. On my eye.”

McCoy watches her gravely. “And your elbow.”

She laughs sharply, a short, nearly hysterical bark of sound. “Right, exactly. There was no air - someone found me, got me out before it was all closed off."

“And then?”

“Then he fell over and died,” she mutters.

“Christine -”

“Please don’t,” she says quietly. “You said I’m fine. Other people need you right now. Can I get back to work or not?”

“Not,” he replies decisively. “I want you to go lie down in the office for awhile, try to calm down.”

“I’m calm.”

“What you are, young lady, is in the midst of an acute stress reaction. I wish to hell you weren’t ‘cause I could damn sure use your help right now, but it’s here in front of me all the same. Go lie down. I’ll come by in an hour and we’ll see how you’re doing.”

She grits her teeth and wants to rail at him, tell him not to treat her like a helpless child when she’s fresh from trying to hold a kid’s intestines inside his body, trying to save everyone, on her own, and failing.

Instead she slips off the edge of the table and nods idly. “Fine,” she mutters. She pushes past him and detours for a supply cabinet, already open and raided, and grabs a set of clean surgical scrubs. On her way to the office she stops at Jim’s side. “You all right?” she asks him quietly. “I’d treat you, but McCoy’s grounded me.”

He nods. “It’s cool, someone’ll get me soon. Guess his report of your death was exaggerated?”

“Greatly,” she agrees. “Raincheck on those drinks, Jim.”

The CMO’s office, God bless it, has a tiny, private restroom with a sonic shower unit. She leaves her bloody uniform in a crumple on the floor and washes the smears and stains from her skin before dressing again, then stretches out on Doctor Puri’s - what _used_ to be Doctor Puri’s couch and stares up at the ceiling.

She doesn’t move until the door slides open and McCoy stomps in, looking even more hassled and aggravated than before. He waves an impatient hand at her and she sits up, makes room for him to collapse next to her. “What do you say we just hide in here until this is all over, one way or another?”

Christine smiles weakly at that. “Sounds nice. Ensign Refkin?” she asks. “Is he -”

“Alive, for now. We’ll see how it goes. If he survives, it’s down to you.”

“It’ll be down to him being luckier than the others who were stuck with me.”

“Goddamn it, Christine -”

“Sorry, sorry, I know. I just - sorry.” She sighs. “It really was a beautiful day.”

“Yes, it was.” McCoy rubs his fingers into his eyes and slumps back. “Should have enjoyed it more while we could. It was probably the last one we’ll ever see.”

“What do you mean?”

“That’s the next round of bad news. The Romulans are headed for Earth, most likely to do the same thing they did to Vulcan.”

“We’re going after them, right? We have to!”

“Try telling that to Spock. Jim tried and it got him tossed off the ship. Least he’s safe on a planet instead of still mired in this shit storm.”

“He’s _what_?”

McCoy just shakes his head. “That’s not even the half of it. Come on, I’ll fill you in while I give you a full work-up. I need to get you back on duty if I’m able. We lost eight of our people when the lab blew, and that’s not counting Doctor Puri.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.” He gets up slowly, reluctantly, and reaches for her hand to help her up. He doesn’t let go right away; his thumb strokes the back of her fingers. “Christine -”

She shakes her head. “Don’t.”

He sighs. “Fine.” He’s gone irritable again, his brow twisting in frustration. “It’s - fine, damn it. Have it your way. Doesn’t matter, anyway.”

She wants, like nothing she’s ever wanted before, to be able to tell him that it does. That’s the problem - it _does_.

She just can’t.

Not yet.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

He treats her for a handful of side-effects of her exposure to the partial vacuum of the decompressing storage bays, then clears her to return to duty on the strict condition that she restrict herself to monitoring the post-op patients.

She’s checking the bandages on Refkin’s abdomen when Jim’s voice comes over the comm and announces he’s taken command of the ship and may well be taking them all to their deaths.

In a moment of bright, startling clarity, the realization that her life is now resting in the hands of a man she only recently witnessed receiving a fairly public blowjob, who’s not even supposed to be _on the ship_ , hits her like a ton of bricks.

 She starts giggling and has to walk away for several minutes to get herself under control.

When McCoy returns from the bridge, he just shakes his head at her inquiring look. He has fear in his eyes, not the frantic stress of mass casualties and strained resources, but the kind of deep, knowing fear that makes her stomach twist, makes her wish she’d done things differently, makes her miss her mother. “Trust me,” he mutters as he passes her, “you don’t want to know.”

And then, by some miracle, they survive.

In the medical bay it’s a fairly anticlimactic affair, continuing to treat the patients while the ship rattles and heaves and shudders in a prolonged threat to come apart, until it’s all over. McCoy won’t let her into Captain Pike’s surgery, so when Jim finally limps in at the end of it all, she stands by while M’Benga examines him and dictates orders, and then follows instructions silently. Jim - the _captain_ , she thinks to herself, and nearly starts laughing hysterically again - seems just about ready to drop, and she doesn’t like it but she obeys her orders and doses him with Masiform D and sends him on his way. The stimulant does its job quickly; his eyes are brighter when he kisses her cheek quickly before leaving.

McCoy is still working on Pike when rescue ships arrive. Things happen quickly: medical personnel beam straight in and begin taking over, and before she knows what’s happening, she’s been relieved of duty again and herded onto a shuttle, transferred to the first ship that leaves to transport the Enterprise’s crew back to Earth.

She can’t, this time, find it within herself to protest. The clean, bright, adequately-equipped medical bay of the science vessel - the availability of an osteogenic stimulator alone makes her want to weep in relief. By the time she’s delivered to the Academy, checked in as a confirmed survivor, and cleared to return to her dorm, she’s been put almost entirely back to sorts, and will be perfectly healthy in a matter of days.

Elsa, on the other hand, is dead.

Christine confirms it, alone in their room, as soon as she gets there. Seeing the name on the crew manifest of the USS Mayflower, she finally, finally breaks down and cries.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

She goes back to work after two days. The Academy has suspended classes for another week, but she’s going stir-crazy with nothing to do. She hasn’t let herself get to know anyone enough to feel comfortable with the collective mourning that’s going on, and McCoy isn’t back yet. She learns, after a few inquiries, that the senior officers have remained on the ship while it’s being slowly escorted back to Earth for repairs.

At last, the day before classes resume, she walks into the hospital and he’s there, in his duty uniform, reviewing charts like it’s any other day, like nothing ever happened  
   
She wonders when he got back. She wonders why he didn’t come to see her.  
   
She wonders what he’s thinking, when he looks up and gazes at her over the counter of the nurses’ station. “Chapel,” he says briefly. “You’re looking better.”

She swallows hard. “No lasting damage, sir.”

“Glad to hear it. I saw that Ensign Refkin has been discharged already.”

“Yes. His recovery has exceeded expectations, by all accounts.” She turns her attention to scrolling through her patient assignments for the shift. It’s easier to deal with than his cool stare. “I take it your trip back was a safe one?”

He snorts. “Blissfully.” He goes silent and she glances at him, curious. He frowns at her and then steps back. “You’ll have to excuse me. I’m scheduled for surgery soon.”

She chews on that for the rest of the day. They’re working staggered shifts and he’s long gone by the time she signs out. She walks slowly back to campus and lets herself into her silent room. A petty officer came days ago to pack up Elsa’s belongings for shipment back to her family; Christine sits on the edge of her bed and stares blankly at the barren space in front of her.

She gets up and walks out; she can’t be there anymore. She finds herself knocking on McCoy’s door but he doesn’t answer, so she just slides down the wall opposite it and rests her forehead on her bent knees. She sits there for a long time before a hand brushes her shoulder, and she looks up to see McCoy crouching next to her, his questioning scowl softened by mild concern. “All right, there?”

“Sure,” she says with forced cheer. “I was just - I needed to talk to you, so I thought I’d wait.”

He nods skeptically. “Wait’s over, then. Come on in.”

She follows him in and perches on his desk chair, posture straight and firm, as he sits on the edge of his bed. “Just tell me something,” she starts, folding her hands in her lap. “Did Jim Kirk really save the fucking planet? Or did I dream that up and somehow start a mass hallucination?”

McCoy groans and falls onto his back on the bed. “Good God, do _not_ get me started. He’s absolutely fucking _impossible_ right now. He was bad enough to deal with when he could be counted on for one part boy genius, two parts moron extraordinaire. He’s gone and added intergalactic hero to the mix, though.”

She laughs, but asks seriously, “Is he all right?”

McCoy sits up and looks at her. “He will be, yes. He’s been coming down hard the past few days, is all. I don’t think he’s quite ready to deal with the underlying issue.”

“Which is?”

“Let me put it this way - he’s dodging transmissions from his mother left and right.” He sighs. “I don’t want to talk about Jim anymore. How are you doing?”

“Fine,” she says. It feels distressingly good to have him ask. “It was touch and go for awhile - crotch fungus was starting to seem preferable to assignment in the fleet.” He smiles tiredly at that. “I’m coping, though. I just - I didn’t want to be alone anymore, not right now. Times like these are when it sucks to be a loner, you know?”

“Yeah. Your roommate...?”

“Mayflower,” she says evenly. “It was the first to drop out of warp. No survivors.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me, too,” she replies simply.

“Come here,” he says. He holds out a hand.

She doesn’t move. “I don’t think -”

“Damn it, girl, do you have to be impossible all the time?” he mutters. He gets up and crosses the short space to her, pulls her out of her seat. He wraps his arms around her and rests his cheek against the top of her head. After a long, tense moment, she lets her arms go around his waist. “Manual access code is twelve, twenty-two, fifty-three. You can come here any time you want, all right?”

“Fifty-three - is that a date?”

“Day my daughter was born.” He rubs her back and she presses her face to his shoulder, lets herself relax. “Lie down and get some rest, would you? I have some work to get done.”

Christine nods silently and steps out of his loosened embrace, curls up on her side on his bed. For awhile she watches him sitting at the desk, reading, until her eyes slide shut and she falls asleep. She wakes in the middle of the night and blinks groggily until her sight adjusts to the darkness; McCoy is asleep on his back next to her, in scrub pants and a t-shirt. She shifts over and slips one arm across his stomach, and goes back to sleep.

 At dawn she wakes in the warm circle of his arms, her head pillowed on his chest. She lies still and listens to the steady thump of his heartbeat for a long time, then carefully eases away and returns to her own room.

She tries, as she’s getting ready for class - combat triage, _ha_ \- to figure out what the hell is stopping her from going back and crawling back into his bed. He wants her still, she’s pretty sure, but she’s also sure he won’t do a thing about it so long as she’s broadcasting rejection as loudly as possible.

Which - it’s not that she wants to. It’s that she can’t seem to stop herself.

There used to be sixty cadets in her class. Now there are nine, including herself. Every single one of them had been on the Enterprise. The Lieutenant Commander who runs the course tries, gently, to get them to talk about their experience as it relates to the subject matter. It’s awkward and stilted; the class was designed as a lecture, not a practicum.

When it’s her turn she stares out the window. “Sometimes,” she says, “the best you can do is hold yourself and your patient together and pray.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

She is, Christine is starting to realize, neither as strong as she has always tried to pretend to be nor as weak as she has always believed, deep down, that she actually is.

She’s simply putting one foot in front of the other like everyone else, sometimes more gracefully than others.

Two months pass. Eight weeks, and she adjusts to the reduced size of her classes, to the heavier workload at the hospital as they try to compensate for the staff they lost while training younger cadets as quickly as possible for duties beyond their experience.

She even gets used to having her own room, something made significantly easier once she mans up and arranges to have the extra furniture moved out. Still, on two occasions she caves and takes McCoy up on his offer, lets herself into his room. The first time he isn’t there and she curls up on his bed and studies, falls asleep along, her data pad clutched in her hand. She wakes up huddled against his warmth and slips out without disturbing him. He seems exceedingly grumpy the next time she sees him, at work, but she has a hard time telling for sure.

He’s grumpy an awful lot, of late.

The second time - the last time - she goes when he’s home, sits on his bed and makes an effort to talk lightly. She bitches about classes and patients and the unending idiocy of the hospital administration. He responds readily enough, half his attention on studying, but at one point she looks up and catches him watching her, frowning, moody.

Her breath catches and she has to swallow down the sick sense that this is all there is left, that he’s masking annoyance, that’s just he’s just _doing the right thing_ by tolerating her presence. She stumbles through stilted, awkward ‘good nights’ and returns to her room, finds it easier to face ghosts than his sufferance and pity.

She doesn’t go back.

Life grinds on, busy, a race to graduation. She throws herself into working as much as possible, taking extra shifts at the hospital even as she works on her final thesis. McCoy is brusquely professional when she sees him at work, polite and friendly in class. Otherwise she doesn’t see him much - quick glimpses in their hall, him leaving as she arrives or vice versa.

On a chilly, rainy night, she responds to a knock at her door and finds Jim there, McCoy leaning against the wall across the hall looking unhappy. “You promised me a raincheck,” Jim says, his smile playfully flirtatious. “Grab your coat, Chrissy baby, I’m cashing in.”

“ _Now_?” She glances back at the work she has spread out in a mess on her desk, pads full of notes for her thesis. She glances next at McCoy, who shrugs as if to absolve himself of all responsibility for this ambush. She looks at Jim again. “You remember your promise?”

“Consider it renewed, even.” He grabs one of her hands and lifts it to kiss her knuckles. “One perfect gentleman, at your service.”

She snorts at that; Jim Kirk will be a perfect gentleman the day she turns blue and sprouts antennae.

They go to one of the regular cadet hangouts. On the way they walk on either side of her, Jim’s shoulder brushing hers occasionally, McCoy maintaining a discreet distance. The bar is a little quieter than she can recall ever seeing it, but it’s early still. They stake out a booth; Jim slides in next to her and McCoy stretches out, alone, on the opposite side, his back against the wall. She orders an entire bottle of Aldebaran whiskey and three shot glasses, winking at Jim when he grins in approval.

To his credit, Jim sticks to his word - he never touches the bottle, only drinks what she pours him, and only after she’s gone ahead first. McCoy, though he never promised and she never asked it of him, keeps pace. He’s distant and brooding, mostly just listens to her and Jim talking while staring out at the growing crowd on the main floor. Her good mood falters; she pours their fifth round far sooner than she had intended. “Okay, Jim,” she says, pushing his shot to him with two fingertips. She doesn’t push McCoy’s, leaves him to reach for it. He scowls at her and she ignores it, tries to recover the lighter vibe. “Time to spill. Just how is life as a hero?”

He sighs dramatically, happily. “Pretty damn awesome, gotta admit. The levels of fawning alone - it’s mind-blowing. And there was this one chick last week, _man_ , the things she said while I was -”

“Hold it,” she cuts in. “That’s quite enough, I get the picture.”

He laughs. “I doubt it.” He slings an arm along the back of the booth and lets it rest against her shoulders. She tenses, but he doesn’t move it away. “Somehow, Christine, I don’t think your imagination is anywhere _near_ filthy enough.”

McCoy’s glass clatters against the table. “Jim, don’t be an asshole.”

Jim looks at her. He’s sitting too close. “I’m not - help me out, Chris.”

She shakes her head with a tight smile, pours again, drinks. She tries to keep her voice light. “Not an asshole. Just wrong. My imagination, Jim Kirk, could put yours to shame.”

His eyes spark with interest. “Really. Feel like sharing?”

“Don’t you wish.”

“ _Absolutely_.” He laughs and drinks; his leg shifts closer and his calf brushes hers. She crosses her legs to put a stop to it, feeling a spark of irritation. She tries to tell herself that he’s just being himself, that this is second nature to him, that maybe he doesn’t even _know_ \- maybe McCoy hasn’t told him all of it, any of it. “Dream on,” she retorts.

“Don’t doubt that I will,” he says cheerfully. His fingers trail along the back of her neck, the slope of her shoulders, no effort whatsoever to hide it. Her skin tingles pleasantly under his touch and she flushes with warmth, but her annoyance grows. He leans in to speak close and quiet next to her ear, his hand flattening against her neck, his lips brushing her skin. “Unless you want to come back to my place tonight and give me a demonstration of whatever goes on in that mind you claim is so dirty?”

Christine is self-aware enough to know that her explosive flare of anger is in large part due to McCoy, sitting there and watching this happen with a pinched expression. She’s abruptly sick of everything - of Jim, of McCoy, of herself. She pours and has to focus just the slightest extra bit to keep from spilling. “Jim,” she says sharply, lifting her glass and leaning from him, “you are a very handsome guy, and generally a delight to be around, and you’re even entitled to some pretty major gratitude for the unbelievable shit you somehow pulled off. But let me tell you something - the only person at this table I have any desire to fuck is _him_ , so _lay_ _off_.”

She tips her head back and gulps down the fiery green liquid. Jim smirks and does the same.

McCoy drops his on the table.

As McCoy fumbles for napkins to wipe up the spattered alcohol, Jim stands up. “Finally. I’m gonna go talk to women I actually stand a chance with. Have fun, kids. Be less stupid in the future - that’s my schtick.”

She stares hard at McCoy, annoyed that he uses cleaning up as an excuse not to look at her. “Well?” she finally asks. The whiskey has loosened her up just enough to be honest, while still able to think - mostly. “Are you going to say anything?”

“Yeah,” he snaps. “What the hell is your problem? Are you incapable of contemplating relationships except through the bottom of a glass?”

She frowns but decides to let that go. She deserves it, for one, and she doesn’t want to think too hard about whether it’s actually true. “I’m no good at them,” she says warily. “Obviously. Um.”

“You’re aware that I’m _no longer_ married,” he grouses, not softening in the slightest. “According to my ex’s many and detailed diatribes on the subject, neither am I.”

“And I really hate that you’ve seen me fall apart.”

“Have I? I don’t recall that. I recall you doing your damn job under impossible circumstances, just like you’re supposed to.”

“You know what I mean.”

“No, goddamn it, I really don’t!” He scowls at the table and then grabs his coat. “Hell with it. I have better things to do than deal with this shit.”

Subdued, she gathers her jacket and follows him out of the bar. Jim catches her eye as she leaves, his expression tight with concern. She waves him off.

The rain is still coming down, a thin but steady drizzle, as they walk silently to the public tram. “If I had any kind of patience for being ignored by a woman except when she’s in the goddamn _mood_ to deal with me on adult terms,” he finally says tersely at the station, not looking at her, “I’d still be married. There are some pretty good reasons that I’m not, you got that?”

“Yeah, I got it.” She boards the tram and slumps into a seat; he sits across from her. His legs stretch across the aisle. She chews nervously at her thumbnail. “When I say I’m not good at relationships,” she says as they near the campus, “I mean I’ve never even tried. You’re the only man I’ve ever even had to see again, after.”

“Doesn’t surprise me,” he grumps. She blinks at him, startled. “You talk a real good game sometimes, Christine, but you push people away. Every time it comes to mattering, you’re at arm’s length. It’s a lousy way to live.”

“It gets me through.”

“It won’t, always.”

She twists in her seat and turns her face away to look out the window. He’s right; she knows it. It’s a system that’s already failed her, spectacularly - in a roommate she hadn’t even liked but can’t forget; in a dead man whose name she still doesn’t know but who left her a debt she can’t repay; in a kid who pled with her through shining eyes while she knelt, wrist deep in his guts and the horror of knowing she was all he had.

Christine chose nursing instead of med school for a reason. She’s never wanted the responsibility of another person’s needs weighing on her shoulders and hers alone.

She’s simply never felt she could hold up under the burden.

The walk back to their dorm is tense, uncomfortable. McCoy still lets her precede him inside, his manners that automatic, but he stops at his own door and swipes his card angrily over the scanner, steps in to keep it from closing. There he pauses, his back to her. “I want you and you damn well know it,” he says roughly. “I’d like nothing more than to haul you in here and spend the rest of the night showing you how much.” Her breath catches in her throat. “But I’ll want that tomorrow and the next day, too, and I’ve got exactly zero interest in doing your cockamamie little song and dance again.”

She doesn’t respond for long enough that he sighs and his shoulders slump. “Good night, Christine,” he says wearily. He steps out of the doorway and the panel slides shut.

Christine stares after him, her heart pounding, the sound of her breath harsh in her own ears. She just stands there for a minute, trying to decide - trying to be sure. She can’t afford to be anything less, not again. This one’s on her, no one else to blame, and this time she has a choice. She isn’t just trapped with nowhere else to go.

She steps forward and punches in the access code.

McCoy is standing at the end of his bed, just pulling his sweater over his head. He looks at her, his hair damp and ruffled out of place, his arms still caught. His bare shoulders shine in the soft glow of the desk light. Slowly, he finishes pulling his arms out of the sleeves. His jeans are slung low, exposing the sharp cut of his hips, the defined swell of his abdominal muscles, the dusting of hair sneaking up his belly. “Neither do I,” she says simply. He watches her with hooded, guarded eyes. “So we’ll try it differently this time.”

The clutch of wool in his hands falls to the floor. “Differently.”

“Yes. Tomorrow, if you want me -” He frowns and opens his mouth, something impatient and angry building up to spill out. She corrects herself quickly. “When you want me. I’ll be here.”

He closes his eyes. “Come here.” It’s an order; it’s a test.

She goes.

At the brush of her body against him, he looks down at her and brings his hands up to cradle her skull, his thumbs caressing the line of her jaw. “And the next day?” he asks quietly.

“And the next. Until the day I actually _do_ get blown out into space or something.”

His fingers tighten on the back of her neck. “Don’t _fucking_ joke about - God in heaven, Christine, that was maybe the worst hour of my life and thinking you were gone was no small part of it.”

She flushes at his vehemence. “Okay, then. Until - well, until we get assigned, at least. Might go different places.”

“That’s up to you. This isn’t public knowledge yet, but they’re giving Jim the Enterprise when repairs are complete. They notified his selections for department heads so we could start putting our teams together. I already requested you.”

Blinking, she presses her palms flat to his stomach and pushes them up, rubbing circles as she goes. “Really? Even though I’ve been -”

“I told you once, you’re the best damn nurse I’ve ever worked with. I think I know an ensign who’d agree, foot of missing intestine aside.” He finally ducks his head and touches his mouth to hers. His hands scrape through her hair, smoothing down the halo of damp fuzz that the top layers have become, as he tilts her head to his liking and drags her lip between his teeth. “It’s yours if you want it. Always was.”

She twines her arms around his neck. “I want it,” she says, the truth of it clicking into place inside of her, displacing her fear. “I want it.”

McCoy kisses her long and deep, his day-end stubble scratching around her mouth, his hands moving to slowly work off her clothes. When he’s crouched at her feet, easing them out of her jeans, he looks up at her. “Get on the bed,” he says quietly.

Christine crawls backwards atop his sheets, watching him undress. Naked, he comes after her, straddles her legs. His body curves down as he captures her head again, tilts it back so he can nip at her jaw, lick the corner of her lips. She opens her mouth and draws in his tongue, sucks hard. She takes his growing erection in both hands and strokes it slowly until it’s fully hard, the soft skin hot under her fingers. With a groan he tears his mouth away, breathing hard, and she takes advantage of the opportunity to curl in and close her lips around the head. The shaft pulses in her hands.

He lets her continue for a few minutes, until she moves to grasp his hips and take him deeper, her efforts more earnest than teasing. “Wait,” he says. His voice is strained. He pushes her back gently. “Not yet.” She pouts and he smiles, hard and fierce. “Easy, honey. You’ll get it - when and where I decide.”

A jolt goes through her at that and she squeezes her thighs together and bites her lip. He pushes her down with firm hands on her shoulders, hovering over her; when she tries to reach out and stroke him again, he grabs both her wrists and raises them over her head, pins them to the pillow with one strong hand.

Holding her like that, he leans in and his mouth closes over one nipple and draws hard, pulling a tingling ache from deep within her, all the way to the surface. She strains against him and moans. “‘s’good,” she mumbles. “God, feels so good...”

His teeth scrape lightly. His hand brushes down her side and he shifts, presses one knee between her thighs to pry them apart. “Let me in,” he growls against her skin. She obeys instantly, spreading herself wide without shame. His fingers tease at her, too light to satisfy, tickling. “Wet already,” he murmurs. “You’re dripping for me.”

She whimpers; he plunges two fingers into her and circles his thumb slowly over her clit. She pushes her hips up against his hand, her shoulders grinding down against the sheets. “Please,” she gasps.

He licks up her chest to her neck, a broad stroke with his flattened tongue. “Hold your horses, honey, I’ll get you there,” he grumbles. “Bratty little impatient vixen _kid_...”

“I’m...twenty-five...damn it.” She manages to twist one wrist out of his hold and brings her hand to the back of his neck, curls her fingers across his sweat-soaked flesh to hold his mouth to the tender spot he’s mouthing. “I’m not a kid.”

He chuckles against her throat. “You’re a freaking baby. Live with it.”

“Yeah, well, you’re a curmudgeonly old coot,” she laughs. She squeals as he scrapes his thumbnail against her clit, makes her hips jerk. “Ah, ah - ah! No fair!”

He lifts his head and grins at her, curls his long fingers inside her to make her gasp and arch. “Not too old to fuck you senseless, am I?” He rubs his thumb firmly and her eyes roll back as she goes tense and climaxes. “Hmm, yeah, no patience at all. Gonna have to teach you some one of these days.”

She shudders as he works her through the aftershocks. “Whatev- whatever you say. Just not now. I want you. Please.”

“I should make you wait,” he says, his voice a low, warm threat. He withdraws his hand and lets go of her wrist, strokes both his hands along the curves of her hips and stomach. “Make you plead...”

“I _said_ please,” she whines. It draws another laugh from him and she basks in it, in the lightness, in his happiness. “What do you want me to do, get on my knees and beg?”

His eyes darken. He lifts his outer knee over her leg, eases his weight down. “You on your knees, that’s definitely a thought to hold onto,” he growls, and then he’s sliding into her, one sure stroke taking him all the way. She wraps her legs around his waist and bites her lip at the stretch, the slight burn that fades fast as he starts to move.

He holds himself up over her. The muscles in his shoulder flex under her hands, his entire body going into the effort of each deep thrust. She brings one hand to his face and passes her thumb over his damp upper lip, then presses it to his mouth. He draws it in, sucks the salt from her skin, nips hard at the fleshy pad. She squeezes her inner muscles hard around him and he groans. “Goddamn, Christine, honey - Jesus _fuck_.”

“You kiss your momma with that mouth, mister?” she asks breathlessly.

“Nah, just you.” He drops and does so, his tongue against hers matching the pace of his driving hips. She unwinds her legs and digs a heel into the bed, twists her body in a hard roll. He grunts as he comes to rest on his back, rhythm disturbed, and she can tell he misses the control but he submits silently as she pushes herself upright and braces her hands on his stomach.

She lifts, comes down slowly. “There you go,” she pants. “On my knees.”

His teeth flash; he rocks up into it each time she lowers onto him. “Not exactly what I had in mind, but it’ll definitely do.” He skims his hands along her thighs and up her waist, cups her breasts in his hands. He pinches her nipples.

She closes her eyes and loses herself to a slow rise and fall, to the stroke of his hands over her body, to the rub of his cock setting off flares of sensation inside her. Her pace quickens as tension coils in her belly again, and when she’s too close to maintain a steady rhythm he grabs her hips, hard enough to bruise, pumps up at just the right angle. Her head falls back and she shakes apart, spasming around him.

As soon as she goes lax and weak he takes advantage, flips her under him again. He kisses her messily as he takes over and goes for it, pounding in fast and frenzied. At last he pushes deep and falters, hips stuttering to a slow halt as he comes.

They lie in the muted light for a long time, his weight heavy but welcome atop her, his cock softening inside her. He buries his face against the slope of her shoulder and she scratches lazily with one hand at the short hairs on his neck, massages the tension away gently. He licks at her sweaty skin, mouths a bruise into it that her duty uniform won’t hide. She doesn’t mind. He mumbles something. “Hmm?” she murmurs.

He turns his head just enough to unmuffle his voice. “I said I love you, damn it.” The muscles in his neck go rigid again, under her hand. He waits.

She stares up at the ceiling, holds him, and prays she can do this - work with him, serve with him, _be_ with him - and get it all right, at last.

“I’m glad,” she whispers. “Me, too.”

In the morning, they’re both still there.


End file.
